A pet says a lot about who you are, but perhaps none more apparently so than the dog you choose. "You project your personality onto your dog," says film director Mr Brody Baker, one of five pairs of dogs and their owners we chose to photograph for this story. "I think we look for dogs that represent us physically. That is why there is so often a correlation between appearances." So do owners actually look like their dogs? Do we cast our own wants, desires and styles on to our pets? Whether your dog is a welcome antithesis of you, or a complete iteration of your four-legged self, a hound is a true companion.

"You buy into a dog and a certain breed," says creative director Mr Andrew Wren. "You want your dog to be who he/ she is, but there is a limit to when that works and when it doesn't." This is particularly true in a city such as New York, where homes are often small apartments and parks are rarely for off-leash roaming.

Despite this tight urban setting, New York is full of dogs of all sizes and shapes, pure-breds and mutts, pounding the pavement come rain, snow or scorching sun.

As with Messrs Baker and Wren, all five of these men and their dogs are making it work in the big city, with regular weekend trips to upstate New York or Long Island. Even if owning a dog in this city means climbs in the stairwell during winter, getting pulled by their mate on a skateboard or walking six miles before breakfast, they are united in the same opinion - that they wouldn't have it any other way.

Click on the images, above, to meet five New York men and the dogs they call friends as we explore their relationship and how they have grown together against the backdrop of the city.